I believe what they're talking about is more commonly referred to as "McCarthyism".

No, McCarthyism was an anti-communist panic in the USA. They're referring to USSR propaganda. I assure you, resentment over a better quality of life was not driving McCarthyism. Quality of life was far lower in the USSR, in addition to the fact that the Union and SSRs had more mass killings and abuses of citizens than United States by orders of magnitude:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_the_Sovie...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_transfer_in_the_Sov...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_deportations_from_Eston...

A place with high quality of life wouldn't have three entire nations jump at the first sign of instability to declare independence:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Way

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singing_Revolution

"I have seen the future, and it works!" is nothing more than demonstrably false propaganda. See here the anarcho-communist Emma Goldman say it themselves:

http://libcom.org/files/Emma%20Goldman-%20My%20Disillusionme...